RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

More Voices Warn of ISIS Threat

This weekend we saw a distressed retired Lt. General McInerney issue a dire warning of a possible 9/11 style ISIS attack on, or around, September 11 2014. In addition to McInerney we also saw warnings from Rep. Mike Rogers – Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morel, and Rep. Michael McCaul – Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, on not only the possibility of ISIS attempt another 9/11 style attack in the United States, but also the more general threat of ISIS on the rise.

“I do think they present the greatest threat we’ve seen since 9/11,” McCaul said. “This has been festering for the last year, and now it’s culminating with the killing and the beheading of an American journalist. … The American people — it has sort of opened their eyes to what ISIS really is, the true character of ISIS, how savage they really are and … their intent to harm Americans.”

“One of the problems is it’s gone unabated for nearly two years. That draws people from Britain to across Europe, even the United States, to go and join the fight,” said Congressman Rogers on NBC’s Meet the Press, as he explained the unchecked rise of ISIS/ISIL and its international recruitment. “That’s what makes it so dangerous. They are one plane ticket away from U.S. shores.”

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“This is an opportunity for the president to take a step back, change his presidential guidance on how we disrupt terrorism around the world, including Al Qaeda, that has been slowing down,” said Rogers. “We have missed dozens and dozens of opportunities to take really bad people off the battlefield in the last two years.”

Asked if the United States is safer today than we were on 9/11, the Chairman said, “We’re just not configured.”

I am not completely sure what “We’re just not configured” means, but it certainly doesn’t sound comforting.

“There’s three things we have to worry about: Two are short-term, one is long-term,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The two short-term pieces are, number one, will they inspire somebody here to conduct an attack? The second is, there’s a number of Americans, a number of Canadians and a number of Western Europeans who went to Syria to join ISIS to fight with them. Any one of those could be directed back at the United States to conduct a small-scale attack. Over the long-term, two-and-half, three years, we have to worry about a 9/11-style attack by ISIS.”

These warnings vary in degree, specificity, and timelines, but all alert us to a growing, possibly imminent, threat to the American people. We don’t know if Lt. General McInerney is right, and an attack will happen within the next month, or if former CIA Deputy Director Morell is correct and we have a few years before the warm nuclear glow comes to a town near you courtesy of ISIS.

Regardless of who is correct, the United States and, more importantly, the people, need to be aware of what is happening and begin pressuring this Administration to put the golf clubs down and act how the leader of the free world is supposed to act. Otherwise, we are going to end up with a lot of dead Americans thanks to Obama’s golf game.